So with that said, it is evident that Grotesque was hugely influential in the Gothenburg/Stockholm scenes. Insulter was a member of Liers In Wait and Diabolique. Goatspell, aka Tomas Lindberg, went on to appear in At The Gates, Infestation, and The Crown. In either case, Necrolord, aka Kristian Wahlin, is the infamous artist whose artwork graced the covers of many bands including Bathory, Emperor, Necrophobic, and Dissection to name a few. If you don’t know their real names and or the bands that they wou ld eventually help form or collaborate with, well you suck donke y balls off a giraffe’s anus, seriously. Memb e rs included Offensor, Insulter, Goat spell, Necrolord, et al. Grotesque w as formed in 1988 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Simply put, Grotesque was the band that spawned At The Gates. This excludes a handful of metal-bros and metal-sisters I know (you know who you are!) as well as the rest of the IllCon collective here of course.
Sweden’s Grotesque should not need any sort of introduction but alas, even in this day and age there are a handful of scenesters and poseurs out there in the Metal community that are not as well versed in the Tome of Metal as they should be. In the spirit of All Hallow’s Eve, I present you with this fine slab of chaotic evil. If you like brutal fucking death metal then give this a spin. This CD stayed in my car for several years and only got taken out because I had a broken window and it snowed on my "drivin muzak". This album if one of the finest in all of brutal death, a masterpiece up there with Effigy of the Forgotten and Path of the Weakening in my book. In the middle of they album they give us an interlude in the form of Engrish champion "Depths of Sore," a Bolt Throwerish samplefest. There's a few weird riffs in there to keep you on your toes and some pretty killer soloz too. The songs grab hold of you and accelerate until massive slams drop like a cluster bomb. Compositionally, Bloodline is more complex than its predecessors with many more riffs per song than the previous albums. His drumlines propel and invigorate the riffage a couple of times a riff is repeated too many times but he switches up his beat and keeps it from getting stale. But the real hero on this album is the drummer, Chris Brincat. The guitars have an awesome dry buzzsaw sound, similar to a clearer, more midrangey Dismember, and the bass is audible. Space battle between a giant ass lightening monster and smaller monsters over what appears to be Trantor? Muthafucking check! No record exemplifies what I love about brutal death metal more than Beheaded from Malta's Ominous Bloodline.
In recent years producers have learned how to record brutal death metal, which is a good thing, but the crappy drum sound still gets me all nostalgic. Anger and the kick drums sound like Vulgar Display of Power. At 12 I was listening pretty much exclusively to Metallica fast forward a couple of years and I was listening to death, grind and some doom here and there, and I discovered the magickal world known as brutal death metal. 12 year old me said that it sounded pretty cool. They said it sounded like a tin can or whatever. Anger came out back in '03 everyone complained about the snare sound. HAPPY FUCKING HALLOWEEN, YOU FUCKING FREAKS.
Just go download THESE first so you'll have the proper soundtrack for a macabre Hallow's Eve wasted in front of a computer screen.īeware, boys and ghouls. I'm not even going to give you any hint as to what it is. I don't actually have much to say today, but I did bring an awesome gift for all you basement-dwelling Halloween poo-poo-ers. I mean, any holiday the Fundamentalists decry as "Satanic" can't be that bad, right? LOOK AT THE ALTERNATIVES. That being said, I am a legitimate fan of HALLOWEEN, due to both its pagan origins and also the high weirdness it often inspires. I've said it before, and I'll most likely say it again. I don't want to get up on a soapbox or anything here, but every day can be a "holiday" if you pull your head out of your ass and learn to enjoy life, rather than letting society dictate which "special days" should be enjoyed with family and friends, or which days the Christian faith designate as important enough to take off work. I don't think my views are unique (or even rare), a lot of people get super bummed an/or pissed on holidays, as evidenced by spiking suicide rates around those times.
Christmas and Thanksgiving are a fucking pain in the ass, as are most other faith-based "holiday celebrations" that the Hallmark Company has imposed upon us in the last century or so.